He That Believeth In Me (The Jimmy Carter Post.)

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

...

Democracy's great recent successes — in India, Portugal, Spain, Greece — show that our confidence in this system is not misplaced. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed.

For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is better quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have regained our lost confidence. ~Jimmy Carter

Yesterday Jimmy Carter died, I got the news when I woke up and checked my social media.

Jimmy Carter, farmer, Naval officer, activist, Governor, President, founder of Habitat for Humanity and peace negotiator, and informing all these things was that he was a Christian without being an asshole about it. Jimmy Carter didn't try to be a "Great" man, he sought to be a good one, and I rather suspect the one title he ever cared about having was the one he got at the end "Good and faithful servant."

Fair winds and following seas, brother. We have the watch.

I rather suspect that we will not see his like again, not least because historically, America does not even appreciate good leaders, but loves mediocre ones who talk a good game, and we'll be lucky to get out of our current mess as one country to find another mediocre leader to replace the incompetent and shitty but (according to the mob) entertaining one we're about to get.

And if we fail, it's going to take leaders of at least competent quality and exceptional effort by decent people to keep civilization together where it's willing to be kept together. Jimmy Carter was the kind of guy who could do shit like that, and did with Habitat for Humanity. I know people that have houses because of him. I mean, for fuck's sake, via Habitat For Humanity and the local Re-Store up here (Yes, the one here even though I lived downstate at the time) I got a washer and dryer, cheap. My Mom and her then-partner delivered it later. It was certainly more useful than the PCS to Minot Air Force Base that the policies of George HW Bush and Bill Clinton got me.

Sometimes it's the little things that end up being important to people.

With all the crap that's coming, we could use a thousand more like Jimmy Carter, not losing the one we had.

And Jimmy didn't ask for any credit or props for what he did, he did stuff because it was the right thing to do.

And that, right there, is more than this asshole ever did in his life.

Think about that, for a second.

Hell, Jimmy Carter died and Trump tried to make it all about him.

And we, as a nation, lacked the self-respect to not elect this motherfucker again.

I can't help but feel like Jimmy Carter picked the right time to go home.

Jimmy Carter's Christianity was work, not a Thirst Trap. He didn't want to use his carpentry skills to build a big statue of Jesus, he wanted to follow his Lord's ways, and that is much harder which is why most people don't do it. His faith wasn't "Give me $20 and I'll show you the way to Jesus" it was "Give me $20 so I can buy some boxes of screws to help build some people a house." 

He always served others, not himself. He understood the concept of duty.

The work he did, the world he was trying to build? Being a light unto the world? Keeping that effort going now falls to the rest of us. Jimmy didn't just say "Live as if Christ was coming this afternoon" he lived like that.

And we'd best not shirk our duty, especially not to the "Least of these" that Christ often spoke about.

Jimmy Carter didn't.

Remember that, because there's going to be a test later.

Слава Україна!

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: ~John 11:25

The Rosalynn Carter Post

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

Last Post

Remember when your High School History teacher said "The course of human events changes because of the deeds of great men"?. Well the bitch was lying. Fuck Caesar, fuck Lincoln, fuck Mahatma Gandhi. The world keeps moving because of you and me: the anonymous. Revolutions get started because people don't have enough bread. Wars start over a game of checkers. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO Series "Oz" S1, E8 "A Game Of Checkers."